Leprosy is a terrible skin disease that causes skin lesions, sores, nerve damage and muscle weakness and is highly contagious.  Today leprosy can be treated with antibiotics and if diagnosed early will not leave permanent damage.  In biblical times of Leviticus and when Jesus was fulfilling his ministry, leprosy could not be cured.  The disease was so awful that people considered it a punishment for sin from God.  Separating infected people prevented them from touching others or others touching them and becoming infected by the disease.  Anyone with leprosy was unclean and anyone who touched a person with leprosy became unclean and had to be isolated immediately to wait for symptoms to appear, or to be deemed clean again when the disease did not appear, and to prevent the spread of the disease.  People with leprosy were separated from their community and often lived isolated for a very long time as they withered away and died.  Very sad.  Can you imagine what a sorrowful, lonely and dejected existence these people with leprosy experienced?

It is no shock that a man with leprosy would implore Jesus to cure him if he wants to, and it is no surprise that Jesus took great pity on the man and said he did want to cure him, then touched the man and cured him of his disease.  The disease that had separated him from his friends, family and community.  But Jesus touched this man…and in doing so became, himself, unclean according to the Jewish laws.  This is likely one of the reasons that Jesus did not enter any other towns.  Not that Jesus was sick with the disease but because he would be breaking the Jewish law if he did not remain apart.

Leprosy is often used to illustrate sin.  When Jesus died on that cross he took upon himself our sickness which was our sins, thus curing us.  Just as Jesus made it possible for the man to rejoin his family, friends and community, he made it possible for us to rejoin our heavenly Father, from whom we had been separated by our sins, our disease.

There is both a symbolic and a literal interpretation of Jesus’ actions in the Gospel.  Symbolically Jesus removed the “sin” from the man which separated him from God.  Literally, Jesus removed disease, acting compassionately, restoring the man to health so that he could rejoin his family and friends, no longer dying and no longer a disease threat to others.

The Psalm this week is Psalm 32:  I Turn To You, Lord

Have a blessed week!